Scaling New Heights in Academia Training for God’s Kingdom

A Response to the Needs of God’s Kingdom
As one of the founders of the Asia Baptist Graduate Theological Seminary, Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary (HKBTS) launched a jointly-organized Doctor of Theology (Th.D.) program in the 1960s in order to cultivate theological talents in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Then in 1999, HKBTS officially established its own Graduate School, offering the Master of Theology (Th.M.) Program.
In 2009, when Prof. Joshua Cho assumed the presidency of the seminary, he began to consider, from the perspective of God’s Kingdom, whether HKBTS should launch a doctoral degree program and he found that such a move would be able to respond to contemporary needs in three ways: (1) a doctoral program would help nurture the next generation of scholars and pastors, equipping them to respond to the church’s needs and leading the church in the face of the challenges of a pluralistic society; (2) with the establishment of a doctoral program, HKBTS would be able to take up more missions, not only by sending graduates to mission fields in more places but also by training theological personnel for the Southeast Asian region, which means training locals to train the local pastors so that the local pastors could in turn train the local Christians to preach the gospel; (3) a doctoral program could not only nurture talents for the Main Campus Programs, Lay Theological Education Program and Distance Education Program of HKBTS but also prepare a group of teaching and research personnel for the seminaries on the Mainland and in Southeast Asia.
A Different Th.D. Program
Based on the above, the Th.D. Program Preparatory Committee was set up in early 2012 with the concerted support of the faculty members and the preparatory work quickly began. Members of the Preparatory Committee came from different backgrounds and reflected the different approaches of higher education in the U.K. and U.S.A. Together they considered the strengths and weaknesses of various educational approaches, finally coming to a conclusion that HKBTS should adopt an approach combining the best parts of training in British, American and European graduate schools so that it could help doctoral students to discover their own potential and build their skills in order to better pursue knowledge.
The objective of HKBTS in launching the Th.D. Program was not merely to train the most academically outstanding students, nor for the seminary to become a productive “factory of doctorate holders.” We value students with academic potential and hope that the program can help them discover their own potential and give them an opportunity to develop their abilities and gifts in the long run. For this reason, applicants must be spiritually sound and display integrity in their character. They are required to possess an M.Div. degree and a Th.M. degree, with a GPA of at least 3.75 for the latter. We set this minimum requirement because we believe every Th.D. student must have both the commitment to serve the Lord and excellent academic abilities before they can do advanced research in the area of theology with outstanding results and make a contribution to God’s Kingdom. Additionally, there is another basic requirement for students to pass a translation test in German or French in the preliminary phase of the Examination of Candidacy. Because when a student possesses a certain command of a foreign language other than English, their vision will be broadened. Another reason is that a great many theological works are written in German and there are numerous philosophical works written in French.
Since his assumption of presidency, Prof. Cho has been actively encouraging teachers to work together across their areas of expertise in their research and dialogues. With their collective scope of expertise thus broadened, teachers are further empowered to give guidance to future Th.D. students who can conduct cross-disciplinary research. An educational institution must attain a high academic standard before offering a doctoral program and such a high academic standard will also have a positive motivating effect on its own students. Even though they may not pursue further studies, they will still develop a different outlook and qualities in such a learning-rich environment, which may further enhance the overall development of the seminary.
Marching toward God’s Kingdom‒Making the Best Better
As soon as the Th.D. Program was introduced in 2013, two Th.M. graduates from our seminary enrolled for it. Afterward, we admitted three more doctoral students from the Mainland upon recommendation by the China Christian Council and the National Committee of Three-Self Patriotic Movement of the Protestant Churches in China. After seven years’ hard work, our first Th.D. Degree was awarded to Dr. Tiger Chan. His dissertation entitled “Theology and Phronesis Rooted in the Scripture: The Theological Project of Vanhoozer–God, Scripture, Theology and Discipleship” won the 2020 Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award presented by Rev. Dr. Lien-hwa Chow Memorial Foundation. He was also the only winner in this Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award Scheme, illustrating his academic contribution to the Chinese theological world.
In response to the needs of future development, HKBTS has proceeded to build a new academic building on the Sai O Campus in 2016 which is expected to be completed by the end of this year. In view of the constantly increasing number of students taking graduate school programs, an entire story in the new academic building will be used for the Centre for Graduate Studies, offering the Graduate School students a venue for individual study and group discussion, and providing space for the storage of teaching and research literature and materials.
Looking ahead, HKBTS will continue its theological education by cultivating more scholars of and for the new generation who devote themselves to theological and biblical research, and who may then serve the Heavenly Kingdom with a solid biblical foundation and in-depth theological vision. They will serve churches, seminaries and publishers around the world in response to the various challenges in churches and society.
